Belladone Dress by Deer and Doe in black and white vichy wool and mustard lining

10 February 201521 comments

Here I am to post a new sewing project finally! 🙂 I’ve thought about what to sew with this black and white vichy wool for months. I bought it on Supercut.it in September and since then I’ve thought about it. I changed my mind thousands of time, but I finally decided to sew a Belladone dress by Deer and Doe, a french indipendent pattern designer. I bought the pattern at Abilmente fair on last October.

I’m really happy with my choice. The dress is beautiful (I love the back cutout) and the pattern is perfect. For the first time I didn’t mix the sizes as usual, I chose the 38 and it perfectly fits, without any variation.

However I decided to make my life quite a bit more difficult with a series of choices that really put my patience to the test 🙁 :

First of all, beautiful fabric but it completely drove me crazy! I tried every which way to match plaids, both in cutting and sewing, but there was no way and I gave up in the end, even if I managed to do it in some points.

Wool in direct contact on my skin has always bothered me, so I decided to line the bodice. I used a mustard silk fabric that I bought at Gandini Tessuti in Milan last october. I’ve always loved to match yellow with black and this winter I’ve seen this matching in a lot of fashion and design magazines. It gives the products and the garments a touch of retro to in my opinion.

This was my first lining. It was complex to understand how to line, because the shoulders of the bodice were made of two piece instead of one piece only, due to the back cutout. I decided to use a french seam for the shoulders and a bias tape for the neckline and the armholes. The french seam turned out to be bad idea, because with the two fabrics (wool and lining) is too thick. Moreover I was careless and I sewed it using a 2,5 cm seam allowance instead of a 1,5 one, so the bust darts moved up by 1 cm and they are not perfect on the bust 🙁

Instead I like how the lining of the back cutout came out. I didn’t topstitch because I didn’t want too many visible seams, both in the right side and in the wrong one.

I decided to use a centered zipper instead of an invisible one. Tragic choice!! 🙂 I had to sew and resew thousands of times, above all in the waistband. In that point the fabric was very thick and the needle didn’t go ahead. So I had to push the fabric ahead myself. As a result the waistband is all misaligned, because I pulled the cloth in order to have it slid under the press footer. I sewed and unsewed it up at least 3 or 4 times, but it didn’t work out. In the end I even risked to damage the wool fabric, so I decided to have my waistband misaligned 🙁 what a pity…probably if I had chosen to use an invisible zipper It would have been perfect. I’ll try to hide this defect with a belt.
Anyway the most tragic thing has still to come! While I was cutting the tacking of the centered zipper I cut a little piece of the fabric on the right flap…what a disaster! I had to mend the hole, but the defect is so visible 🙁

Instead I’m really happy of my first handmade bias tape!
I followed this Colette Patterns tutorial (you can also find it in The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick) and I have to say that, even if it was the first one, it came out well! Bias tape always gives me a lot of satisfaction 😉
I sewed it with the sewing machine on the right side and then I hand-sewed it on the wrong side, in order to not have visible seams outside. It was a long job, but I like the result!

Finally I hemmed up by hand (I didn’t use the skirt facing of the original pattern).

Despite the mistakes I love this dress! I’m really sorry for having damaged it, and exactly on the back, the stand out of the pattern. Do you have any suggestion to hide the waistband and the hole better? Have you ever damaged a dress exactly in the end?

Ps: It was just a little windy when we took the pictures on Sunday …and so cold!!!

21 comments

[…] twill or something similar, resembling the Deer and Doe photos but nothing grabbed me. Then I saw LaDulsaTina’s version, when searching for a tutorial on how to line the bodice, and decided I wanted black and white […]

What a cute dress and well executed. I am sewing a checked dress at the moment and also had to recut the sleeve and bodice on one side because I had not matched the checks! It definitely takes more time and effort to work with a patterned fabric.

Could you give more detail as to how you lined the dress, especially the back pieces? It all looks very complicated and I couldn’t quite work it out…
you have inspired me to give this dress a go, I bought the pattern today and like you I like to have a lining in my dresses… 🙂

Could you give more detail as to how you lined the dress, especially the back pieces? It all looks very complicated and I couldn’t quite work it out…
you have inspired me to give this dress a go, I bought the pattern today and like you I like to have a lining in my dresses… 🙂

Can’t wait to see your version, Ju! 😉 I’m happy to have inspired you in making this beautiful dress 🙂
Ok, I’ll try to explain you what I did in a post, because it’s really too long here and quite difficult because I didn’t take any picture or videos over the work 🙁 Anyway I’ll try to be as clear as I can. I’ll let you know as soon as possible, at the latest in next week, ok?
See you soon! 🙂

The dress looks so great especially with the contrast. I am so impressed with your projects that you have taken on as a beginner, I haven’t been as brave as you so you have inspired me to just do it! I might have to get this pattern too. I will follow your blog and look forward to all your future projects! Grazie mille!

Thank you so much Ju! I’m so happy to have inspired you…don’t be afraid to start a little bit more difficult projects. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but I’ve learned a lot from them. Try to make projects with always new skills to learn and it will be simpler and simpler 🙂

Love love love your dress! I certainly don’t see the mistakes when I look at the pictures. I love the idea of Belladone in wool too, I have that pattern but haven’t made it up yet so I might use that idea as inspiration 🙂

Oh dear! Aren’t you a little hard on yourself? This dress looks perfect to me! And matching vichy –good luck with that! You did spectacular work at it anyway. Also on a personal note, I’d like to give you thumbs up for remembering about the french seam, no matter how bulky it came out. I always forget about it and then curse myself because I don’t own a serger and have to make some other finish that usually doesn’t look as neat. I think I need to write myself a big note saying “FRENCH SEAM IS GOODNESS” and place it in a visible spot.

I think that mustard lining is awesome, truly. But say, doesn’t the skirt stick to your tights, not being lined?

Also, yes, it does happen to me that I make a hole in an almost finished piece. It makes me want to cry each time. But I guess we get better with time and know when to be extra careful. So don’t beat yourself up about it.

Now, I don’t know if you do such things, but I got invited to Liebster Award and wanted to invite you, in turn, because I admire your blog, and I linked your blog here: http://robot-heart.blogspot.com/2015/02/lovely-blogs-liebster-award.html
If you’d like to answer a few questions and invite some other people to join in, it could be fun! But please feel no pressure :). It’s just for fun after all.

Thank you Klara!!! you’re always so kind! 🙂
“FRENCH SEAM IS GOODNESS” is a great statement…I LOVE french seam! Now I have a serger, but before buying it I had loved to use french seam…It’s so professional and good looking!

It’s strange but I wore the dress with old tights and the skirt doesn’t stick at all. I can’t wear it with brand new tights…I tried but I had to change with the old ones. Maybe brand new ones are too electric…I don’t know. But with old tights it works 🙂 Unfortunately I had only 50 cm of silk lining and I had no time to go back to the shop, so I decided to line only the bodice. If I have problem of sticking in the future, I’ll probably sew an underskirt.

Thank you so much for inviting me to Liebster Award! I’ve already received an invitation but I haven’t had time to do it so far. I want to join, so I hope to answer the question in next weeks! 🙂

About Me

My grandmother’s name was Martina and she sewed her own clothes…my name is Martina and I took 32 years before starting to use a sewing machine! But I have no longer stopped since I started and I sew almost every garment I wear nowadays. Welcome to my sewing blog!

About Me

My grandmother’s name was Martina and she sewed her own clothes…my name is Martina and I took 32 years before starting to use a sewing machine! But I have no longer stopped since I started and I sew almost every garment I wear nowadays. Welcome to my sewing blog!